Douglas "Doug" Quaid is a factory worker suffering from violent nightmares who is deeply unsatisfied with his current life. As a solution, he visits a corporation called Rekall, which can implant artificial memories of a life he never lived. The procedure triggers what he believes are latent skills and memories from a life that was erased, leaving him unsure who he is and what side of the conflict he's really on.

The film has less gore and gruesome imagery than [[Film/TotalRecall1990 the original]], but also takes itself more seriously.

----!!This film provides examples of:

* AdaptationalHeroism: Unlike the original movie, this Hauser truly did turn against Cohaagen.* AdaptationInducedPlotHole: In the original ''Film/{{Total Recall|1990}}'', there was a perfectly legitimate explanation why Hauser had to have his memory erased and take on the Quaid persona, because Quato, the leader of [[LaResistance the resistance]] was a mutant who could read minds, and could easily detect an undercover spy therefore. But in the remake, the leader is just some standard normal guy without any mind reading ability, thus eliminating the need to erase his memory, and making the whole premise of the film rather faulty.* AdvertisedExtra: [[BestKnownForTheFanservice The three-breasted prostitute]] is back, and in one of the trailers, with some AdaptationalAttractiveness thrown in.* AerialCanyonChase: A variant with flying cars and massive skyscrapers.* AfterTheEnd: Following a series of wars, the only parts of the world not rendered a biohazard wasteland are the United Federation of Britain (a chunk of Europe controlled by Britain) and the Colony (Australia).* AmnesiacDissonance: Doug is a factory worker ground down by life. His previous personality? Not so much.* ArtisticLicensePhysics: "The Fall", a massive train that runs through the earth between Europe and Australia, is capable of making said run in just over fifteen minutes (which means a minimum average speed of ~32,000 miles per hour). However, the heroes have no problem breathing, moving, climbing outside the train and fighting on top of it. ** Even more implausible is the idea that it has been built through the center of the Earth, most of which is liquid/semi-liquid magma and thousands of degrees Celsius. How does one build something that can withstand that kind of temperature and resist being crushed by the entire mass of the Earth? *** Almost as if to make this even worse, the movie explicitly states in the opening that "The Fall" is the only means possible to travel between Europe and Australia. Somehow it's possible to achieve an engineering miracle like building an elevator through the center of the Earth, but it's become impossible to fly or sail across the Earth (despite the movie showing that traveling and living through these dead zones is still possible).** The Earth has been stated to be mostly uninhabitable due to global chemical warfare. If this were true, then air currents would have inevitably carried these gasses across the habitable zones at some point. Not to mention, chemical weapons degrade at incredibly quick rates, and the idea of these zones being uninhabitable for so long is ludicrous. * ArtisticLicenseGeography: Mathias' base is apparently located in the "dead-zone" of London, an uninhabitable area made deadly toxic during the wars that no one visits and is only accessible via disused tube tunnels. The problem is that the presence of the Telecom Tower reveals this location to be only about 1.5 miles ''max'' from Big Ben, which is seen to still stand (albeit over-shadowed by massive floating skyscrapers) in the habitable zone.* AsianAndNerdy: The Rekall boss and head technician are Asian. Justified as the place is actually in a Chinese ghetto, complete with [[BilingualBonus signs in Mandarin.]]* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking[=/=]AdaptationalBadass: This version of Cohaagen is an ex-military GeneralRipper turned politician, who's not afraid to lead from the front and can actually hold his own rather well in a fight.* ATeamFiring: Semi-averted by the Synth soldiers. With the exception of Cohaagen's custom bodyguard, none of the synthetic soldiers seem to have much in the way of targeting programs and they always miss the heroes. They do shoot at least a half dozen innocent people on accident though. * {{Badass}}: Lori and Quaid/Hauser.* BadassGrandpa: Cohaagen puts up a surprisingly good fight against Quaid. * BattleCouple: When Lori turns against Quaid.* BettyAndVeronica: Lori's the Veronica to Melina's Betty.* BigBad: Chancellor Cohaagen.* {{Bizarrchitecture}}: All the major cities on Earth appear to have been relocated to the two habitable zones left and stacked on top of each other.* BottomlessMagazines: {{Averted}}, for the most part, but played straight with Lori's six-shot revolver.* BulletproofHumanShield: [[spoiler: In Doug's first fight with the Federal Police, he grabs one of the troopers and holds him as a shield while he shoots the rest of the squad. Justified in that the troopers are wearing body armor]]. * ChekhovsGun: When Lori [[spoiler: picks up the disguise device.]]* ChekhovsSkill: A fairly neat example in the final fight, [[spoiler: Hauser's elite hand-to-hand combat moves prove utterly useless against Cohaagen's Synth bodyguard. However, Quaid's training as a factory worker allows him to disassemble the Synth's power supply and shut it down.]]** His ability to stay calm and act methodically during a gravity switch due to frequent Fall trips also comes in handy.* TheChessmaster: Cohaagen* CompositeCharacter: This version of Lori is a mix between Creator/SharonStone's Lori (ruthless secret agent posing as caring wife), and Creator/MichaelIronside's Richter (AxCrazy ''way'' above and beyond the requirements of the job).* CoolGuns: The police all carry TDI Vectors, compact .45ACP submachineguns whose engineering mostly eliminates muzzle rise. ** And the [[RevolversAreJustBetter Chiappa Rhino]] (Think the succesor to the [[RareGuns Mateba Autorevolver]]) is heavily used by the police and Lori.* CrapsackWorld: The colony, especially in contrast to the United Federation of Britain. However, at least its livable, unlike the other parts of the world which can no longer be safely inhabited.* CyberPunk* [[CyberpunkIsTechno Cyber Punk Is Dubstep]]* DarkActionGirl: Doug's "wife", Lori, much to his surprise.* DeadlyHug: Lori to Quaid, after he tells her he's been to Rekall.* DesignatedGirlfight: Lori vs. Melina. [[spoiler:Subverted at the end, when Hauser fights and kills Lori.]]* TheDragon: Lori more or less fills the role, due to being the most seen UFB agent. The black Synthetic could also count, due to capturing Doug in the opening flashback and being the one he fights brutally during the final fight.** [[spoiler: DragonTheirFeet: Lori doesn't participate at all in the final fight, and ends up outliving Cohaagen by a couple of scenes. Then she decides to make one final attempt at killing Quaid and gets killed for her trouble.]]* DoingInTheWizard: The remake attempts to be more realistic in tone and setting. * ElevatorActionSequence: Two or more depending on how you count. There's a fight sequence halfway through the film that takes place in and around a 3D "turbolift" system. The climax takes place on the seventy-story through-Earth "Fall" elevator, and features a zero-gravity gunfight.* EvilBrit: Lori.** The UFB in general seems to be playing this trope, with many other UFB personnel being British and their capital being London.* FalseFlagOperation: Cohaagen engineers a series of bombings that he blames on the Resistance, in order to justify building more and more Synthetics, until he has enough to mount a full-scale invasion of the Colony.* {{Foreshadowing}}: Doug reads an Creator/IanFleming novel on the Fall. He later opts for the secret agent package at Rekall.** Everything the Rekall boss says about the Rekall 'secret agent experience'.* GambitRoulette: [[spoiler: A lot of Cohaagen and Hauser's master plan comes across as overly complicated and dependent on luck, although a large part of this is due to the gambit being triggered prematurely by Quaid's visit to Rekall.]]* DangerouslyGenreSavvy: Though played straight later, Cohaagen shows signs of this by [[spoiler: personally shooting the rebel leader Matthias almost immediately after detaining him]] * GettingCrapPastTheRadar: You know that three-breasted woman? You get to see her flash her boobs onscreen in a PG-13 movie. Which, of course, only happened because all three are fake.* GreenEyedMonster[=/=]UnknownRival: Lori's taunt to Melina about her sexual past with Quaid is the impetus for their subsequent fight.* ImposterForgotOneDetail: [[spoiler: Lori impersonates Melina in the last scene, only for Doug to notice that she's missing the bullet wound scar on her hand.]]* KeystoneArmy: [[spoiler: Cohaagen's Synth army apparently has a global shutdown code which is the big secret stored in Quaid's head that the Resistance needs. However, it turns out there is no global shutdown code; it was all a ruse by Cohaagen and Hauser to entrap the leader of the Resistance.]]* LaResistance: So [[SarcasmMode cleverly]] called "the Resistance".* LayeredMetropolis: See AerialCanyonChase.* LeaveHimToMe: [[spoiler: In the finale, Cohaagen decides to confront Quaid himself.]]* MechaMooks: The Synthetics. The movie is somewhat original in that they're used more as bulletproof EliteMooks rather than guilt-free disposable cannon fodder).* MindScrew: [[spoiler:Averted. Imagine if the last scene had been Quaid waking up in Rekall with them asking, "So, how was it?"]]* TheMole: [[spoiler: Quaid/Hauser, though it's not that simple. While Hauser, the original, is the one who engineered the "mindwipe" plan in the first place and was thus a double agent, Quaid joins the resistance both out of agreeing with their cause, and because they aren't the ones shooting at him.]]* MythologyGag:** A number of them; the 3-breasted hooker, "I don't know, I just work here", the "two weeks" woman, the severed arm scene.** Like the original film, they cast an actor who had previously been best known for playing hapless Sitcom Dads to be the ruthless BigBad, and both played [[Film/RoboCop1987 horrible]] [[Series/BreakingBad people]] shortly before this movie was made.** Doug mentioning that he'd like to go to Mars.* NoOntologicalInertia: According to the news-reader at the end, [[spoiler: with Cohaagen dead and the Fall destroyed, it's now a new era of liberty for the people of the Colony.]]* OrWasItADream: [[spoiler:Sadly, this adaptation is missing most of the ambiguity on whether the events actually happened, except for Hauser/Quaid noticing the mark tattoed on his skin between his arm and forearm during his visit to Rekall was missing and a single glance at a billboard for Rekall right before the end.]]* RaceLift: The three-breasted woman.* TheRemake* PresidentEvil: Chancellor Cohaagen.* RecoilBoost: How else would you move around in zero gravity?* RedLightDistrict: Here, it is quite diverse - there's an android, the three-breasted woman, aliens, and [[MurderArsonAndJaywalking even humans!]]* SceneryPorn* SchizoTech: They can drill a huge tunnel through the center of the earth, but somehow they can't get a couple thousand troops to Australia the old-fashioned way.* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: [[spoiler:Quaid eventually sides with the Resistance partly after seeing how bad they have it, and also because the UFB police and soldiers are constantly shooting at him.]]* ShoutOut: ''Film/BladeRunner'' (the design of the cities), ''Film/IRobot'' (the Hauser hologram telling Quaid to "please rephrase the question, my responses are limited"), ''Manga/GhostInTheShell'' (the successor to the [[RareGuns Mateba revolver]] used by Togusa).* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:The three breasted hooker]].* SpentShellsShower: The zero-g scenes have shells drifting around slowly as the character fire.* SpottingTheThread: [[spoiler:Quaid realizes Melina isn't herself at the end because she doesn't have the bullet scar on her hand.]]* StunGuns: Guns that shoot glowing rope that wraps around/incapacitates the target and drags them back towards the guns holder.* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture* UglyGuyHotWife: Lampshaded by Lori when she reveals her true nature to Quaid, asking if he really thought a girl like her would ever really be married to a guy like him (although Colin Farrell is hardly ugly, and it's more along the lines of Quaid's status as a low-level factory worker coupled with living in a dump of an apartment.)* UsedFuture* VillainRespect: [[spoiler: Cohaagen has a deep respect for Quaid and is extremely reluctant to kill him.]]* WaifFu: Averted with Lori. Despite her SheFu skills, she still gets roughed up and bruised in her fights with Quaid.* WellIntentionedExtremist:[[spoiler: Cohaagen's motive for exterminating the population of The Colony is the crippling overpopulation issues facing the United Federation of Britain.]]* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Averted. [[spoiler: Cohaagen personally shoots Matthias almost immediately after capturing him.]]** Played straight by Lori, who [[spoiler: practically has Quaid's life in her hand near the end, but chooses to disguise herself as Melina and then wakes Quaid up just to mess with him.]]* WouldHitAGirl: Doug fights back when Lori tries to kill him.* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: The Resistance are viewed by the public as terrorists after a bombing in a public transit unit. However, the Resistance aren't really terrorists, and [[spoiler: Cohaagen was responsible for the bombing.]]----